Barb Edson is a general manager of the Cloud & Enterprise Marketing team at Microsoft, leading the Internet of Things (IoT) Industry team responsible for product and industry marketing targeting enterprise line-of-business (LOB) decision-makers with Microsoft's cloud-based business solutions for IoT.

Since joining the group in 2010, Barb has been responsible for product management, business development, marketing communications and enterprise sales across the breadth of Microsoft’s products for intelligent system solutions targeting IoT, including the recently launched Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service. Under her leadership, the team launched a range of new solutions and programs for enterprises and Microsoft’s ecosystem partners to capitalize on new business opportunities provided by IoT.

Barb has been with Microsoft since 2005. She originally joined the company as the senior director of product marketing where she was responsible for the launch of Microsoft Dynamics, one of the company’s major brands. She later became the chief of staff for the Microsoft Business Division where she was responsible for overseeing its global administration and operations.

Before joining Microsoft, Barb spent more than 15 years in a broad range of senior leadership positions in marketing and product strategy for companies such as PeopleSoft Inc. and Great Plains Software.

Barb Edson

Posted By Barb EdsonGeneral Manager, Marketing and Business Development

Last week, as China marked a major political milestone, my colleague John Doyle had the great fortune of being in Beijing to celebrate a milestone of sorts for Microsoft: the announcement of the planned roll out of a new suite of Windows Embedded 8 products. John is the director of product management for Windows Embedded; here, he offers his impressions of the historic week.

Just returned from a week in Beijing. It was a really interesting time to experience the capital city as last Thursday marked the first leadership transition in a decade.

Posted By Barb EdsonGeneral Manager, Marketing and Business Development

A couple of weeks ago, at the Intelligent Systems Leadership Summit, I had a chance to catch David Wurster’s presentation on new features and functionality in the Windows Embedded 8 platform. As senior product marketing manager for Embedded, David has a great vantage point to see all of the cool things going on with Windows Embedded 8 as the new suite of products are rolled out over the next year. The following is a blog post he put together for me, so we could share those features in this space.

Over the next year, we're bringing Windows 8 to the embedded market, allowing OEMs, enterprises, developers and other partners to build devices and applications that offer a high-performance, fast, fluid experience without sacrificing any of the security and flexibility that the reimagined Windows delivers:

Windows Embedded 8 Standard continues to be our modular, componentized version of Windows 8. We add technologies on top of that to enable industry-specific scenarios. A release preview is available now, with general availability scheduled for March.

Windows Embedded 8 Pro is the full version of Windows we'll be bringing through the embedded channel. This will also be available in the March timeframe.

Windows Embedded 8 Industry is the new name for our Windows Embedded POSReady product. The reason for the change is that we see the capabilities of this operating system fitting into a much larger number of device categories than just point-of-service. In January, we’ll be offering our first community technology preview of this important release.

We’ve done a lot of work to make sure Windows Embedded 8 is ready for the world of intelligent systems. In the end, it’s all about being able to deliver the kind of rich, compelling, connected line-of-business experiences that people expect.

Much of the excitement around the new platform centers on its multi touch and ten-point touch experiences and the capabilities they enable for the device world. Check out the demo video below for a look at how smooth Windows Embedded 8-based applications can be:

At IFA Ford announced that this version of Ford SYNC—which includes a touchscreen interface—will be coming to Europe in 2013 in the Ford Focus Electric.

While I was at the conference I participated in a roundtable discussion with Ford and a few other industry experts to discuss the future of the connected car. The connected car focuses on how the vehicle experience can be enhanced when you integrate internet connectivity, data, and new user interface technologies like speech and touch.

The subject of the connected car is especially near and dear to us in Windows Embedded – and not only because Ford SYNC is built on the Windows Embedded Automotive software platform. When we talk about intelligent systems as the evolution of the embedded device market, it’s exciting to see how this is affecting the automotive industry.

Posted By Barb EdsonGeneral Manager, Marketing and Business Development

If you’ve seen the World of Windows video, you’ve seen how many embedded devices can fit into a given day (assuming you are really busy that day), but, during a recent trip to Ft. Lauderdale, I saw what may be one of the biggest uses of Microsoft technology. And I can’t over emphasize the size of it.

At nearly a quarter mile long, Royal Caribbean has built the two biggest cruise ships in the world – the Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. To put that size in perspective, the Oasis of the Seas can cast a shadow on a 20 story building while stretching across four football fields – and there’s capacity for 8,600 people.

As the General Manager of Product Marketing at Windows Embedded, I make it a priority to visit our partners and see intelligent systems in action – and the intelligent system built by the team at Royal Caribbean is remarkable to see in person.